Halfbreed
by Maenad1
Summary: Teucer, bastard brother of Ajax, considers the corpse of his Trojan cousin.


  
  
Zeus the Olympian; this is my cousin. Do you know, in a decade- in an entire  
lifetime, that never occurred to me?  
I've always known that my mother was Priam's sister; she never spoke of it,  
but any story that includes Heracles is bound to be circulated and couldn't have failed  
to reach the ears of palace boys far more sheltered than I was, but the implications have never seemed significant.  
/Achilles/ is my cousin, that inviolable warrior felled by grief and currently weeping in Ajax's arms as if he was the only one with the right to grieve for Patroclus; to call him irrational would be like calling Erebus dark, an inexcusable understatement to make the poets writhe against their lyre strings in discordant horror. Merriment enrages him- he all but murdered a sentry for chuckling into his wine; Antilochos restrained him- but the sight of a rival mourner maddens him to distraction; reason enough for me to take my red rimmed eyes and husky voice out into the starlight and shadows. But nevertheless he is my cousin, Ajax is my brother, Peleus is my uncle, Telamon my father and my mother his concubine.  
Only now, kneeling beside his lifeless corpse in the dust, can I acknowledge this man as my kin.  
He looks like me, a little, beneath the blood and the filth and the frozen pallor of death. Taller, more muscular; his eyes, regarding me passively with neither rancour nor affection, are a different shade and shape and his hair is styled after the fashion of the Trojans, one of a thousand minuscule variations between our peoples that allows us to denounce them as barbarians. It's the same colour, though, and fouled as it is, it falls like mine does when I first take off my helmet: jutting out at innumerable angles,  
like some bizarre construction of the Egyptian engineers. His nose is broken; I can't tell if it's at all like mine, but his jaw, his brow, the angle of his cheekbones, I've observed them every day, reflected in the eyes of the river gods when I bend over them. Looking at him in death is like standing over my own Fetch; a tangible premonition of my own death. He's a little older than I am. Perhaps my mother dandled him on her knee when he was a babe, before Father took her away. Gods, what am I saying?  
After all, it doesn't matter. War, feud, rivalry, baseless squabbles have been driving brothers apart, let alone mere cousins, since Prometheus took it into his head to mould us like so many misshapen pots, from clay. The difference is, I have no childhood memories of before the rift. No recollection that isn't tainted with the blood of slaughtered friends, property stripped from the corpses and taken back within walls as spoils; nothing untouched by fear and death and danger. How many of his brothers-  
also my cousins- have I slain with my bow, without thought? By the dread  
Persephone, if he knew me at all he must have hated me as I've hated him.  
There was a time when we weren't at war, my people and his, and I might have known him, I suppose, but I didn't, haven't and don't. However much of the blood that flows- or congeals, in his case- in our veins is alike, I never tussled with this boy, or dined with him, or even exchanged more words than could be howled across a battlefield with him.  
If someone enquired of me what sort of man my cousin was, the only answer I could give them would be 'a dangerous one.' I know he was an able soldier, commanded the loyalty of his men, decimated us, on occasion and knew when to withdraw before the casualties became too severe; I know he had no sense of self preservation, as mad for glory as any of us. Whether he had a sense of humour, was kind to his servants, was avaricious, drank too much, respected his father- whether he honoured Trojan Apollo first and foremost, or Athene or some other deity, loved his siblings or his wife; these things I don't know. I could ask Odysseus easily enough. He knows everything. But that would imply that my curiosity is more than it is. Suspicion runs rife in our ranks; my position has never been perilous, because no one recalls my Trojan heritage, but this momentary interest, this speculation on what might  
have been, might cost me my head if I voice it to any living ears.  
So I'll embrace my ignorance, I think. No good in learning all about my kinsman only to get myself sent down to Hades for the sake of the whim and finding I loathe his company.  
It only galls me that I never considered, realised, accepted, understood- But while I had Ajax, I had no need of Hector. Oh, I haven't lost my brother; far from it, he'll come calling for me soon enough, it's only that Achilles needs him now far more than I ever could, but- Patroclus. Thinking of Patroclus makes me worry.Not about death, gods know, I'm not so naive that I don't know Ajax or I or even Agamemnon could end up with a spear through the gullet tomorrow. In fact, I'm amazed we've survived this long.  
When Patroclus confided to me his worries about Achilles, I laughed at him. Passed him the wine and asked him if he thought he was a priest of Apollo, or Asclepius himself, to diagnose a comrade and tend to him.  
"What Achilles learned, I learned" he told me, seriously. "And Achilles learned from Cheiron."  
All the same, I laughed. Mad indeed! All those divinely touched are a little odd; didn't Heracles have a temper? Wasn't Theseus rash? Weren't Castor and Pollux beyond the grasp of mortal comprehension? No one would call Odysseus mundane and the ichor best evident in him came from his great-grandfather. Our Achilles was a goddess' son. There were many unflattering names I might have bestowed on him, but 'mad' was never one of them.  
Looking on him now, venting his grief on a senseless carcass, spiralling between tears and fury, committing atrocities of human sacrifice- as if Iphigenia wasn't enough for one expedition! (and what he thinks poor Patroclus is going to do with twelve Trojan youths down in Hades, I couldn't guess. He wasn't even comfortable dealing with the Trojan slaves. Said he felt it was a premature assumption of authority. Their eyes mocked us as we demanded obedience of them while their walls still stood. Like as not, he'll pass them off to Hector here in Asphodel and wander off to see if he can make amends to- oh, what was that kid's name?- Clysonymus) I'm far more inclined to believe him. Who knows what he observed that the rest of us missed,  
guarding Peleus' son day and night, fighting, sleeping, eating beside him?  
Once, it crossed my mind that Patroclus did what he did: rushed out there to his death in armour too big for him, against a better fighter with reason enough to want to hurt Achilles, to avoid seeing his friend deteriorate further. To be spared watching him degenerate in mind- and perhaps body- to an unrecognisable wreck, and perhaps have to deliver him back to his father in bonds, or as a dishonoured corpse. Certainly he's worse, now; Achilles has lost friends before. This isn't ordinary grief.  
Zeus help us, both Ajax and I are closely related to him. If blood does indeed tell, why mightn't one or both of us be next to descend into the pit of insanity?  
Ajax, Ajax. My brother. And the last man on this earth I'd confide this to. He can't know I worry about him. That's his job; I'm the younger brother, his inferior in size and strength and combative skill. A bastard, but the last time anybody reminded me of that the poor fellow lost an eye, courtesy of my stalwart protector. Funny, I wasn't half so affronted as Ajax over the matter.  
That's why I'm curious about Hector. Quite a non sequitur, isn't it? But this- alien- this barbarian from the other side of the wall is my family, too. And I never knew him. But for ten years he fought bravely, strove against us, exhibited valour I never cared to appreciate.  
So is it treason if, while I weep in solitude for my friend Patroclus, whom he killed, I straighten this man's stiff limbs and disentangle- oh gods- Ajax's baldric, that he gave him, from the wheels of Achilles' chariot? If I make some futile attempt to set his broken nose and wipe the crusted blood from his mouth?  
I tell you it isn't. No one wants this damned war finished in our favour more than I do; no one has better cause to prove his fidelity to Hellas than I have; no one is more glad that this royal menace, Priam's son, can't inflict any more damage on our ranks.  
Will it be treason if, when the emissaries come, as I'm sure they will, asking for him back, I, with my feeble authority advocate sending him home?  
No.  
Ten years I've known him, as much as I'll ever know him, and I've never seen him commit a dishonourable act. That is worthy of respect, more respect than an enemy can afford to show him. We've had our vengeance; I stood with the rest and jeered and spat on him when he wasn't an hour dead, kicked him and slashed at his unresisting flesh. We shouldn't cast to the dogs a mutilated body, its final destruction more nauseating than vindicating. Troy should bury her hero. May she bury herself along with it and submit.  
There's no guarantee that either Ajax or I will end so well.  
In life this man could be nothing but my despised foe; in death he can be simply my cousin. 


End file.
